“Frequently claimed by critics as the best Venezuelan film ever made, El pez que fuma, (1977) was produced in the midst of the Oil Boom era and has since become a potent metaphor for the decadence at the height of Venezuela’s economic splendor.”
The Smoking Fish (El pez que fuma, 1977)
January Issue, 2026
A collection of all the articles we’ve published over the past month, for those who like to savor their Magpies’ tidings as an issue.
Letter From the Editor, January 2026
Starting 2026 in a rambling sort of way.
Pipeline in My Pocket. The Waiting Game is Over
“On a more personal level, the work is also about dignity. About whose inner life is considered worth depicting and whose is treated as background noise. If that unsettles viewers or makes them feel implicated rather than reassured, that’s intentional.”
Ignorance and Want
his boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom …
Ellen Harvey: Winter in the Summer House
“He loved nature and the Hudson Valley landscape so much — and I think we all need to be inspired by that or there will be no icebergs left to paint.”
The Emotional Shades of Ifeoluwapo’s Self-Portraits
“Ifeoluwapo applies this method because her work goes to the heart of what it means to be a woman in a world in which a woman has to conform to different roles within and outside the confines of what she calls home.”
Seeing
“It delved into photographs’ potential as a way to arrive at a photographic vision and a photographic philosophy of seeing.”
Flash Fiction: Peaches
“Wait,” he would tell us. “You’ll have to wait.”
Cloud Moving Wind: Basho’s Travels
I myself have been tempted for a long time by the cloud-moving wind — filled with a strong desire to wander.
